Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone ...







You can see many more attempts at Easter morning pictures on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooksgroth/tags/easter/

A little bit that went on at our house this morning:

Tami: Is that snow?
Shawn? Yes, it is. It's just enough to snow to say "Happy Easter ... wear your boots."

Then as Tami was trying to get out the door with the girls, Nessa stepped out the door and a chunk of ice melting off the roof promptly fell on her head!

Then ...

We were in church, up toward the very front as usual, when Nessa looked at me and said, "I don't know how to be quiet." I tried very hard not to laugh (I had prepared her for great things happening if she made it through church since there isn't a staffed nursery on Easter, but apparently I left out the part about HOW to do it.) So, I looked at Megan in desperation and then Nessa looked at Megan and said, "Please take me out now." We hesitated so she repeated it again and again, and ... Thankfully Megan took her out. We hadn't even made it through any of the snacks or fun quiet toys so I'm pretty sure our girl is just too smart for her pants and knew the gig and played it well. I'm not sure how we're going to handle it in the summer.

Wait until you hear about how she ate her marshmallow peep this morning...

Sit-com Easter

Easter Sunday was a nice relaxing day--until about 5:00 PM. At that point, as I was making our Easter supper, the kitchen sink backed up. Knowing full well that it would mean calling the plumber in the morning, I started applying my not-quite-right-for-the-job tools to the task of removing the trap so I could at least get the water to drain. In the middle of this, my brother called. I had to hand him off to Dad so I could get the sink cleared before the ham was done.

I got the drain somewhat unclogged, and a bucket and towels placed under the sink to deal with the leaks left over from reattaching the trap, and we made it through supper. After supper, while Tami was out with Megan, I called my brother back. After we had talked for maybe 10 minutes I heard Nessa start to cry (that "I just got hurt" cry that any parent knows so well)--she had bumped her head on the end table when she looked down to see something she had dropped. I once again handed my brother off to Dad, took Nessa from Mom, and launched into the following sequence:

1) I got Nessa calmed down and gave her something to make her feel better.
2) I told her it was jammie time, took her clothes off, and took her in to go potty.
3) After not doing much of anything Nessa said she was done on the potty, so we went out to put on a new diaper.
4) Nessa was kicking and not staying still, keeping me from putting her diaper on, so she had to sit on the "not being sweet" chair.
5) Nessa peed on the chair.
6) I took Nessa back into the bathroom to sit on the potty again.
7) While Nessa was sitting on the potty, I came back out to quickly clean up the chair. (At this point I told Mom, who had taken the phone from Dad, to tell my brother I wasn't going to have time to talk to him.)
8) I went back to the bathroom to find that Nessa had unrolled 3-4 yards of toilet paper. She looked at me a bit abashed and said "Too much toilet paper."
9) After I got Nessa wiped off, she went to get her stool so she could wash her hands. As she was trying to turn with it, she tripped over her own feet and whacked her head (ear first) into the door frame (her second head whack in 15-20 minutes).
10) I calmed Nessa down again, and we washed her hands.
11) I finally got her into a diaper and got her jammies on. Just then Tami returned and got to waltz in and be the hero, snuggling Nessa to soothe away all her troubles.

This is really the first sit-com parenting night I can remember, but I'm sure it won't be the last.

Easter Egg Hunt and Nessa's "pretties"

Saturday was the Easter Egg hunt at church. The rain meant it was indoors. Luckily they also had crafts for the kids to do (and a movie later). These events are great ... and we hope someday Nessa will actually show that she's having fun.

Shawn took the girls over to church while I got some work done ... Nessa said she was having fun, but apparently she never actually looked like she was having fun. I think she still doesn't feel comfortable around lots of other people and noise and unfamiliar situations (even though the church itself is very familiar to Nessa).

Above Megan is working on her art project and Nessa is just kind of looking at hers. Later at home Megan helped Nessa with her project.



This morning (Sunday April 1) Megan had time to put "pretties" in Nessa's hair. Nessa was so proud of her clips and pony tail so she was showing us and we took pictures.

Nessa's "Cheese" in the picture below reminds me SO MUCH of Megan's cheesy look at the same age when we took pictures.



Nessa loved the fact that she had bunnies on her dress today and was hopping around all the time.

Nessa will now also say she's going to be 2 on her birthday. This is great as when we first started talking about it, she insisted she was going to be 3 ("NO, THREE!").

Both of our girls continue to amaze and delight us!

Rainy weekend and bunny cakes and more

As unexpectedly beautiful as last weekend was, this weekend has been damp, cold (in the sense of Spring coldness) and rainy ... rain, rain go away rain ... although when the sun comes out again we should see lots of green grass! Megan said it's the rain that makes it feel like Spring to her. :-)

The rain made it the perfect Saturday for Megan to spend a few hours baking. :-)

After Yoga Saturday morning we heard that there was a need for more items for the bake sale at church on Sunday. I looked at Megan and she immediately agreed that she could make some things. During lunch we talked about what to make. I didn't want it to get too complicated ...

Megan made chocolate chip cookies and then she found a recipe in a kid's cookbook for bunny cakes where the bunny face is made out of marshmallows and I thought it looked easy enough. We actually followed the recipe and made a 9 by 13 cake and cut it into pieces and decorated each piece with a bunny face but if/when I/Megan do it again I will do it as cup cakes instead (or suggest that to Megan). I think they would look much cuter as cupcakes and would be easier as well.

Below is a picture of the bunny cakes in case anyone wants to make some (just make and frost whatever kind of cake you want to use (we used chocolate) and then cut a marshmallow in half and use half for the face and cut the other half in half again to use for ears, and finally draw the face with a toothpick dipped into food coloring).




Here is Megan proudly holding some of the pieces of cake before she took them over to the church!



Megan also spent a lot of time Saturday playing with Nessa and helping around the house! We're so proud of Megan!!! :-)